Chief Change Officer
#159 Nina Sossamon-Pogue from U.S. Gymnastics Team: When Life Cuts Your Routine Short - Part Two
03 Feb 2025
Who is Nina Sossamon-Pogue and what is her story of resilience?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. These days, we talk a lot about resilience. We can discuss the psychology of it all day long. But who actually walks the walk and talks the talk when it comes to resilience?
Professional athletes. Today, I'm sitting down with Nina Sossaman Polk, a former professional gymnast who started her journey at about four years old and went on to join the US gymnastic team. In her own words, gymnastics is a perfect example of resilience. You literally fall down and get back up all day, every day, as you learn new skills.
That mindset became part of Nina's DNA, and it carried her through some incredible twists and turns. From the heartbreak of not making the Olympic team to leaving the sport for good after an injury, she faced one identity crisis after another. But she didn't stop there. Nina built a successful journalism career that spent 17 years only to be let go despite being a beloved news anchor.
And instead of staying down, she jumped into technology, starting from scratch, and reinvented herself yet again. Yesterday, in part one of our conversation, we explored Nina's journey, her training, her trials, and her setbacks. Then today in part two, we'll explore the tools Nina has developed over the years to help others rise above their challenges.
Tools like the reverse resume and successful timeline. We are not talking about your typical resume or conventional ideas of success. We are going beyond that. So let's begin this incredible journey with Nina. Absolutely. And I think that's a great point. For anyone listening, the takeaway here is to think outside the box when it comes to your skills and experience.
We often limit ourselves to what we have always done or the industry we know, but those same skills can often apply in ways we wouldn't initially expect. In my own experience, A guest on the show, an executive recruiter, once told me I would meet a great executive recruiter myself. At first, I was surprised recruiting wasn't something I've ever considered.
But she pointed out that my ability to support talent, connect with people, and bring the right voices onto the show demonstrated qualities that could be valuable in her industry. So, just like your own story, it's about being creative and open-minded when exploring new directions. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to see what we are really capable of.
Absolutely. And be creative in your own head as you're thinking what you're good at. But I really encourage people to, you might not have seen that about yourself, but she did. Same thing for me. I didn't see that in myself. Other people said, oh, you could do this. Having conversations with other people that ask them, what do you think I'm good at, is really interesting.
You really will learn a lot about yourself. It's hard when we're in our own head. One, we might not see our skills. Two... something that other people think is really valuable that we could do. For us, it may be second nature. We don't even think of it as a skill. It's just who we are. So really cool to look at it that way. She saw something in you, you might not have seen.
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